


Trouble

by Nary



Category: Gosford Park
Genre: Abortion, Female Characters, Gen, Unwanted Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-16
Updated: 2010-04-16
Packaged: 2017-10-09 00:04:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/80833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nary/pseuds/Nary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miss Isobel had been moping lately, quieter and more out-of-sorts than usual.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trouble

Miss Isobel was still in bed when Elsie arrived to help her dress. "Come along, miss, time to get up," she said briskly, and turned to lay open the wardrobe.

The young woman didn't stir, but from the safe enclosure of her covers, she spoke. "I don't want to." Petulant, perhaps, but Elsie could hear something else in that childish voice. She thought it might be apprehension. Miss Isobel had been moping lately, quieter and more out-of-sorts than usual. "Can't you tell them I'm ill?" she asked, letting her eyes peek out over the edge of the blankets.

"It's going to be a lovely day today," Elsie said, half-cajoling and half-reprimanding her charge. "Surely you don't want to spend it in bed."

"I'd rather," Isobel replied, eyes sullen. "I feel dreadful. I think I really _am_ ill. I'm just so tired all the time. Maybe I've got 'flu."

That gave Elsie pause. She came to the bedside and laid her hand on Isobel's forehead, as if the girl was still the ten-year-old she'd been when Elsie'd arrived at Gosford Park instead of practically a grown woman. "You don't have a fever," she said, but didn't go so far as to suggest she was shamming.

"No, but I've been sick to my stomach all week. I feel wretched."

"Have something to eat and maybe you'll feel better," Elsie counseled, throwing open the curtains. "There's kedgeree for breakfast, you always like that." She turned back to the bed just in time to see Isobel sit bolt upright, going nearly green. Elsie dashed for a waste basket in case the girl vomited, but the moment passed before she retrieved one and Isobel gradually regained her composure, though she was still pale.

Isobel looked down at her hands, which were still shaking ever so slightly. "Elsie, you can keep a secret, can't you?"

"You don't need to ask, Miss Isobel. I'd never repeat something you said."

"Not even to Father?"

"Not even."

Isobel clenched the bed linens in her fists until her knuckles went white. "I'm think in trouble."

Elsie's breath whooshed out and she sat down on the edge of the bed. "What will you do about it?"

"I don't know!" Isobel sounded half-frantic. "I can't ask the doctor for help, he'll just tell my parents, and then everything'll be awful!"

Elsie nodded. "Besides, they say it costs a hundred pounds, if you can even find a doctor who'll do it, and where would you get money like that?"

"Maybe I could sell some of my jewelry, or... or my clothes. Mother wouldn't notice, she never remembers what she's bought me." Isobel slid over the side of the bed to sit beside Elsie. She still swung her legs over the edge like a little girl.

"Could you ask... him?" Elsie had a reasonable idea who the father might be, but didn't want to guess in case it seemed as though she'd been snooping. She hadn't, but the gossip in the servants' quarters was impossible to avoid.

Isobel looked miserable. "I shouldn't have trusted him in the first place. He's nothing but a cad, and he's married, and I was so _stupid_..." She threw her pillow across the room, furious with herself or him or both.

"Now, don't say that." Elsie went and picked up the pillow and brought it back, setting it gently on the bed before sitting back down. She put an arm around Isobel, taking liberties that she oughtn't have, but the girl didn't pull back or go icy. Instead she leaned against her, nestling against her like a frightened child for a moment. "We'll find a way out of this, don't fret," Elsie continued, trying to reassure her. "These things can happen to anyone."

Isobel sniffled. "Not to anyone I know."

"I'd bet you ten pounds it has." Something about the quiet certainty in Elsie's voice made Isobel look at her in a new light. "Now, look. He doesn't want his wife – or your parents – to find out any more than you do. Whose side would they take, if it came down to it? Yours, of course." Isobel didn't look entirely certain, but she nodded even so. "So you tell him you need the money, or you're going to your parents. He'll have his chequebook out before you can blink."

"But... can I even wait until I see him again? Won't it start to show before then?"

"How far gone is it?"

Isobel counted quickly on her fingers. "Almost five weeks, I think."

Elsie nodded. That would time it just about perfectly with the Nesbitts' last visit to Gosford Park, and the servants' latest gossip about Freddie Nesbitt and his poor, sad little mouse of a wife. "You've got a while longer before anyone'd notice a thing, then. Probably at least a couple of months, more if you dress to hide it." Maybe longer, she thought, given how little attention Sir William and Lady Sylvia paid to their only daughter. "You'll see him again by Easter."

Isobel looked simultaneously heartened and terrified. "I can't wait that long, though! Something'll go wrong, someone'll find out! I'll be sick all over the breakfast table, or... or Mother will tell me I'm getting fat and poke at me with her finger, and then she'll know!"

"You could write to him..."

"No! Nothing in writing."

"No, you're right, that's a bad idea. You'll just have to stick it out then, or find the money some other way." Before Isobel could break down again, Elsie hushed her. "There's another way. I know a woman who'll do it for ten pounds. But you have to understand, it's not a safe thing, or even a certain thing. Even if it works, it could mean you wouldn't be able to have children again..."

"I don't care," said Isobel vehemently. "I just want it over with, all of it. I never want to see him or talk to him ever again."

Elsie refrained from pointing out how impossible that would be, in the inbred little world these people travelled in. Instead, she said, "You could die, though. I knew a girl who got sepsis, and if she hadn't made it to the hospital, she wouldn't have pulled through..."

Isobel looked miserable. "I wish I was nobody important, and could just have the baby and no one would care."

Elsie's lips thinned. She would have liked to shake the girl, to tell her it wasn't as simple to be 'nobody' as she imagined, but she didn't. "No, you'd lose your job, and no one would ever marry you. You're lucky," she said instead, voice flat, keeping her cool as best as she could. "You can put this all behind you and go on with your life. You'll be happy again."

Isobel nodded, but didn't look as if she believed her.

"Come on now," Elsie said more brightly. "Let's get you dressed and downstairs before they start thinking you've run away with the gypsies." She hustled the young woman out of bed and into something respectable. Before she left to get on with her chores, she said, "If there's anything I can do to help you, you only need to ask."

"I'll think about what you said," Isobel agreed, pinching her cheeks to put some colour back into them. "Oh, and Elsie?" The maid turned back, waiting to hear some final command, but instead, Isobel just said "Thank you," in a quiet voice.

"It's nothing, miss," Elsie replied, and hurried off.


End file.
